


Facing Dragons

by drayton



Category: Oxford Time Travel Universe - Connie Willis
Genre: Gen, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-17
Updated: 2014-12-17
Packaged: 2018-02-27 21:36:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2707637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drayton/pseuds/drayton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>July 2057.  Lady Schrapnell wants to recruit fourteen-year-old Colin.  Told from Kivrin’s POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Facing Dragons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ashura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashura/gifts).



“Kivrin! Lady Schrapnell wants to send me on assignment!” Colin said, bursting into my flat.

“Not possible,” I reminded him, barely glancing up from my work. “Mr. Dunworthy won’t allow it.”

“But if Lady Schrapnell authorized it…” he objected.

“Badri would get the sack and you’d get a smacking,” I said, putting down my handheld with resignation. Once Colin has embarked on the daily wheedle, there’s no hope of getting any work done until his latest scheme has been thoroughly squashed. He usually turns up around mid-morning, and I sometimes find myself still arguing with him at lunch.  “Assuming you could even talk Badri into it. He knows he’s not supposed to send you anywhere.”

“I’m not an infant,” Colin said indignantly, “and I’m not a fool, either. If I went on a drop without Dunworthy’s approval I’d be writing essays for the next five years. He picks the most necrotic subjects when he’s cross. I think he’s trying to make history dull. And then he makes me rewrite it if he’s not satisfied with the results, and if I have to rewrite it a second time, I get _another_ boring essay.”

I could feel myself grinning. Colin is adorable when he sounds put-upon, although he’d not appreciate my saying so. “Sounds like excellent preparation for a First in History.”

Colin scowled. “It’s not funny. You wouldn’t like it if he did it to you. And why aren’t you somewhere on assignment? Lady Schrapnell says she’s completely run out of historians.”

“Witnessing the deaths of a village full of plague victims is extremely traumatic. No drops until I’ve finished counseling, which, unfortunately, will be six weeks after the consecration.” I wasn’t quite able to refrain from smirking.

Colin’s mouth literally dropped open. As I said, adorable. I played my trump card. “That’s right; Dunworthy arranged it. And if he’s capable of rescuing a fully qualified historian from the Schrapnell Vortex, she’s not likely to get her claws into you. I’m afraid you won’t be going anywhere, just yet.”

To my regret, I was wrong.

 

As soon as Colin had gone, looking rather deflated, I left a message about Colin for Mr. Dunworthy. We keep each other apprised of Colin’s various attempts to go on assignment, partly for our amusement and partly to ensure he doesn’t reach his objective before time.

After we came back from the fourteenth century, the three of us were quarantined for several days as possible plague carriers. Ridiculous, of course, as harmful diseases shouldn’t be able to pass through the net, but on the heels of an epidemic, the med staff weren’t inclined to take chances and Dunworthy was far too ill to argue. On the second day of quarantine, for want of anything better to do, I suggested the List: a series of things that Colin would need to accomplish before he could go on assignment. Colin loved the idea, until Dunworthy declared that item number one was “Be at least twenty years of age” and number two was “Be at least a third-year student at Oxford.” Colin's strenuous objections to those two items provided a useful focus for his boundless energy and occupied the whole of an afternoon.

Most of the List consists of items like “Ride and take care of a horse” or “Build a fire without matches or flint.” For the last two-and-a-half years, Colin has been eagerly working his way through the List, although things like sword- and knife-fighting still fall in the restricted category. Usually, the knowledge that he’s making steady progress toward his goal is enough to satisfy him, which reduces the wheedling to half-hearted attempts, but Lady Schrapnell had definitely stirred him up again. Not for the first time, I found myself wondering if all the money she’s donated to Time Travel compensates for the disruption she’s caused.

I wrestled with temptation for a few minutes. If Lady Schrapnell wanted to send Colin on assignment, she might be in Dunworthy’s office even now, discussing it. The prospect of eavesdropping on such an epic confrontation was undeniably inviting, but if I didn’t get on with my research, I’d never be ready for my next drop. Sighing, I went back to my work, and several hours passed before I thought of Colin again. By late afternoon, I was a bit surprised I hadn’t heard from Mr. Dunworthy and decided to risk a visit to his office.

As expected, I found him sifting through forms and schedules with Finch. “Kivrin,” Dunworthy said, clearly glad of the interruption, “We’ve nearly finished. Colin should be along at any moment. As a matter of fact,” he said, frowning at his watch, “I’m surprised he hasn’t already turned up.”

I bit my lip. Whatever else Colin may get up to during the day, he and Dunworthy always eat breakfast and dinner together. It’s a habit I find reassuring, as it means Dunworthy gets at least two decent meals per day, depending on one’s opinion of the food served in Hall.

“Did you get my message?” I asked.

“Message? We’ve been terribly busy, I’m afraid,” Dunworthy said.

 _Damn and blast_. I knew I should have come in person, but I try to avoid running into Lady Schrapnell, despite my unfit-for-duty status. Twice already, I’d wasted a half-hour convincing her I wasn’t some other historian trying to duck her. Then again, if he’d been terribly busy, he might not have been able to see me.

“Lady Schrapnell—” he began.

I sighed with relief.

“—has abducted _all_ the historians, completely disregarding the schedule Finch and I had worked out to ensure no one would suffer time-lag due to improperly spaced drops. We’ve had to do it all over again, giving priority to the most critical assignments.”

I didn’t want to ask Dunworthy, but I had to. “Have you spoken with Lady Schrapnell today?” _Please say yes. Please say you had an enormous row about Colin._

“No. Should I have done?” Dunworthy said.

 _Yes_ , I thought. _She only bothers you when she’s not getting what she wants_. “Colin came by this morning and said Lady Schrapnell wanted him to go on a drop.” I could see Dunworthy adding the absence of Lady Schrapnell to the absence of Colin. I blurted out, “But Badri wouldn’t do it, he knows perfectly well…”

“Badri is out today. Food poisoning,” Dunworthy said, and I could tell he was coming to the same horrible conclusion I was. “Some incredibly cross woman…”

“Warder,” Finch supplied. “Usually works in Wardrobe, but knows how to operate the net.”

Dunworthy was already rising to his feet. He walked rapidly to the lab, as I struggled to keep up, with Finch trailing behind us. “He wouldn’t do it,” Dunworthy was saying to himself. “He wouldn’t. It’s been nearly three years and he’s been perfectly behaved.”

I thought of all the essays and concluded that “perfectly behaved” meant only that Colin hadn’t tried to use the net without permission. Although to be fair, he’s mostly got into Dunworthy’s bad books for things like skiving off from school.

We arrived at the lab, and I soon saw why Dunworthy had referred to Warder as cross. All of us have days when we’re bad-tempered, but I found myself wondering if Warder had taken professional training in it.

“Has Colin Templer been here today?” Dunworthy asked.

Warder bristled. “How should I know? Isn’t it enough that I have to clothe and transport all your historians, now I’m supposed to know their names as well?”

“Have you sent through a first-year today?” I asked. Dunworthy gave me a confused look, but Colin is tall for his age, and really not any more baby-faced than some of our freshers. “About this tall, reddish-blond hair? Would have gone through sometime after ten this morning?”

“Yes, but I’ve no idea where I sent him,” Warder said impatiently. “And I haven’t the time to look it up. I’ve got seven fixes, eight rendezvouses, five costumes to repair…”

“We’ll do it ourselves,” Dunworthy said, and grabbed a handheld to begin running through the log. I crowded next to him to scan it with him, but Dunworthy spotted it first. “This one. August 25, 1939 to Coventry.”

“He wouldn’t have had an authorization,” I said, but Dunworthy was already pulling it up. “Signed by Lady Schrapnell and co-signed… by you,” he said, turning to me.

I took the handheld from him and stared at the form. Sure enough, there was a clumsy forgery of my signature and underneath it, in a tiny script that Warder clearly hadn’t bothered to read, was written, “Ta, Kiv.”

“I will murder that boy,” I said to Dunworthy, but his face was so grey and drawn I feared for his health. “Mr. Dunworthy? Are you all right?”

“I know where he got the coordinates,” Dunworthy said grimly. “This was _my_ drop, twenty-three—no, twenty-four years ago.”

We keep a permanent log of all the drops, going back to the early days of time travel. “I’ll fetch him,” I said. “You obviously can’t.” Dunworthy looked dreadful. If I’d had a vidder on me I would have recorded him so I could make Colin watch it later, to see what he’d done to him.

“It’s not that bad,” I soothed. “He’s only been gone for two hours. If he’s filled up the form accurately, all he’ll be doing is copying the inscriptions on the monuments, and the drop’s in the cathedral, right?”

“In the bell tower,” Mr. Dunworthy confirmed. “But you don’t understand.”

“The target date is August 25, 1939,” I persisted. “Even with a few days’ slippage, he’ll miss the beginning of World War II.”

“There was a bombing,” Mr. Dunworthy said. “By the IRA. On the twenty-fifth.”

 

Whenever I think of Coventry and bombs, I remember the Luftwaffe raid that destroyed the cathedral. I hadn’t known that terrorists bombed several cities in England before the start of the war. A bomb in the basket of a bicycle left outside a shop in Coventry exploded on August 25, 1939, killing five and injuring seventy.

Colin had been sent through to the cathedral, which was only five minutes’ walk from the site of the bombing.

A familiar feeling of sick helplessness washed over me as Mr. Dunworthy explained how much danger Colin was in. I’d been unable to save so many that the thought of losing Colin too seemed unbearable. I’ve had nightmares where Dunworthy and Colin come to retrieve me, only to die of plague before my eyes.

“Kivrin,” said Mr. Dunworthy, taking me by the arms. “This is not 1348. We _can_ save him. Warder,” he said, directing his attention to the tech at the console, “When is Mr. Templer’s next rendezvous?”

Mr. Templer. I wasn’t sure he even shaved yet. Warder took a deep breath, as if preparing for an especially angry retort, but Mr. Dunworthy didn’t give her the chance. “Miss Warder, your continued employment is entirely dependent upon your prompt and _cooperative_ response to the present crisis.” Warder glared at him, but after several savage pokes at her console said, “Ten minutes.”

“I want a five-minute intermittent on him, starting now,” Dunworthy said, then turned to me. “You’ll need a costume…”

“I do _not—_ ,” Warder said, but Finch was already running into the lab carrying a dress and a basket. I hadn’t even seen him leave.

“I believe these will be suitable,” Finch said, handing them to me. “Shall I fetch some currency and perhaps an identity card?”

“Yes, please, Finch,” Mr. Dunworthy said. “Well done. And if you could check to see whether Colin signed for anything while you’re there…”

“Yes, sir,” Finch said, running out again.

I was already in the prep room, struggling into the dress. The basket Finch had brought contained a small handbag, three pairs of shoes in different sizes, stockings, a comb, and hairpins. The dress was a decent fit although a bit long, but I kept fumbling with the stockings. I gave up in frustration and decided to go barelegged.

By the time I’d changed, Mr. Dunworthy had linked the handheld to one of the display screens we keep in the lab for last-minute briefings. “Here’s the cathedral,” he said. “The drop is on the steps of the bell tower, so be as still as possible when you first go through. The bicycle with the bomb was parked in front of Astley’s, here,” he said, pointing at a location that was far too close to the cathedral for my liking, “between 1:30 and 1:45pm, and should detonate shortly after 2:30. We’re sending you through ten minutes before Colin’s arrival. If there’s slippage, he should be in the cathedral taking down inscriptions.”

“And where will you be?” I asked, twisting my hair into a low bun. “The other you, I mean.”

“Possibly in the cathedral itself, depending on the slippage,” Dunworthy said. “More likely somewhere along Broadgate.”

Finch came running in again and handed me money. “No identity cards suitable to the period,” he said, breathing heavily. “Colin was there, and signed for ten pounds in cash.”

“Are you ready?” Dunworthy said to Warder.

She looked at him resentfully, but said nothing more than, “Ready.” I stepped inside the net and the veils lowered.

“Bring him straight back. No side trips,” Mr. Dunworthy said. “If you can’t find him by two o’ clock, go back to the cathedral and we’ll try a different historian tomorrow.” The look on Mr. Dunworthy’s face told me he wouldn’t be sleeping tonight if I failed.

“But if time’s running short, I could stay outside the danger zone, and bring him through after the explosion,” I objected. “The cathedral itself is safe; it’s not that large a bomb.”

“Miss Engle,” Dunworthy said, eyeing me steadily, “you have your instructions.” I blinked. I’d heard him use that you-will-obey-me tone before with Colin, and most recently with Warder, but it had never been directed at me. Was he afraid I’d fall apart if I witnessed the explosion and its aftermath?

“I’ll find him,” I promised, but by then the shimmer of the net was carrying my words away.

 

It was a good thing Mr. Dunworthy had warned me about the steps, because it was dim in the bell tower, even at midday. I carefully walked down a dozen steps, glanced at my watch, and sat down to wait.

 _Why did Colin do it?_ I wondered. He’d told me himself it would be foolish to go. He’d known Mr. Dunworthy would be furious. Had he somehow convinced himself he could travel to 1939 and back without being caught?

Was it my fault? If I’d gone to Mr. Dunworthy in person, he might have seen me and would have contacted the lab to remind them that Colin is absolutely banned from time travel. He might even have had Colin banned from the lab altogether. I should have contacted the lab myself, to ensure that Badri was on duty, but Badri’s always there. Even if I had contacted the lab, Warder seemed so foul-tempered and busy that she might have ignored what I’d told her.

I looked up, startled, as the bells chimed three-quarters past the hour. Colin was scheduled to come through at a quarter past eleven and I’d been sitting there for twelve minutes. It must be 11:45, and slippage had caused me to miss him. I hastily made my way down the steps, hoping this was the right date. And the right cathedral.

Even inside the cathedral, it was warm, so perhaps this was August. I went round the nave, peering into all of the side chapels, but didn’t see Colin scribbling away next to any monuments. I retrieved an order of service half-hidden beneath one of the pews, dated August 20, 1939. At least I hadn’t arrived too early.

I left the cathedral and, after a quick glance round, headed towards Broadgate, thankful for the briefing Mr. Dunworthy had given me. Colin could be in any direction, but given his propensity for finding trouble and his bottomless appetite, I suspected he would have gone to the shops along Broadgate to buy himself something to eat.

Behind me, the bells of the cathedral chimed two o’ clock.

 _Two_? I should have come through just after eleven. I was already supposed to be returning to the cathedral. I couldn’t turn back without spending any time looking for Colin, no matter what Dunworthy had said.

I sped along the sidewalk, peering into each shop I passed, paying particular attention to the cafes. I passed a shop selling newspapers and magazines and saw I had the date right. And just ahead, I caught a glimpse of a boy who might be Colin. I darted forward, trying to catch up to him without actually running.

After dodging women carrying parcels and clerks returning from lunch, I caught up with the boy. I placed a hand on his shoulder, and realized as soon as he turned that I had the wrong person.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m trying to find my brother and you look just like him from the back.” He smiled politely and went on his way, leaving me in despair. I stood still for a few minutes, looking carefully up and down Broadgate for any sign of Colin. _Think, Kivrin. There’s not much time. Where would he go?_

I forced myself to backtrack to the place I’d first spotted the boy, to be sure I hadn’t missed seeing Colin in one of the shops I’d hurried past. By a quarter past two, I was frankly desperate, but couldn’t bring myself to abandon my search.

I had just passed Astley’s, the site of the explosion, when I saw a familiar profile. _There!_ Oh, thank God, there he was, just as I’d hoped, coming out of a shop with a notepad in one hand and a half-eaten pastry in the other.

Colin paused in midstride and stood rooted to the pavement, staring across the street. I followed his gaze and realized he’d seen Mr. Dunworthy. He must have known from the log whose drop he’d pinched, but from Colin’s expression, you’d have thought he’d seen Doom bearing down upon him. Well, Doom _was_ bearing down upon him, albeit from an unexpected direction.

I caught up to him while he was still transfixed by the spectacle of a younger Dunworthy. Channeling my inner Warder, I grabbed an ear and twisted. Colin yelped and dropped the notepad and pastry.

“Kivrin,” he said, looking at me in surprise and alarm, while trying to free his ear. I tease Colin about his youth and he teases me about my height. He tolerantly views me as his tiny big sister, and until that moment, I don’t think he’d fully realized that dangerous things could come in small packages.

Small packages. The bomb! I looked around in panic while Colin rubbed his ear. We were far too close to Astley’s and I didn’t know the exact time. Why hadn’t I reset my watch when the bells had rung?

I snatched Colin’s shirt and tugged until my mouth was level with his reddened ear. “Don’t say a word.” He started to interrupt, and I hissed, “Not a word. There’s going to be an explosion at any moment. We’re going to _walk_ back to the cathedral _right_ _now_.”

Colin stared at me, stunned by what I’d just told him. He bent down and whispered urgently, “When? The bells are slow.”

“ _What_?”

“The church bells,” Colin said. “They’re all five minutes slow. The verger said.”

It was only then I realized Mr. Dunworthy was in danger, too. He knew about the bomb, but must have set his watch by the cathedral bells after coming through or he wouldn’t be so close. What could I do?

Taking a deep breath and a fresh grip on Colin’s shirt, I began shouting as I tugged him along. “Colin James Dunworthy! You’ve _no business_ being here. It’s time you went _straight back to Oxford_ and got out of here. Move! Quickly!!” Colin gawped at me, but didn’t resist and out of the corner of my eye, I could see Dunworthy drifting along after us, apparently trying to decide if we were an unorthodox retrieval team. Good. I’d hoped his ears would prick up on hearing his name.

Never let it be said that Colin is slow-witted. He began protesting his innocence as I continued hustling him down the street, telling him that he was in _so_ much trouble, his father was absolutely _furious_ , while some of the passersby looked on in amusement and one elderly man said to another, “Looks like Da sent a terrier to fetch the hound.” I risked a quick glance backward and saw that Dunworthy was gaining on us. How was I going to get rid of him?

I was rescued from that difficulty by the bomb, which knocked us all flat.

 

 _I’ve failed_ , I thought, as I lay on the pavement next to Colin. I couldn’t feel anything or seem to breathe properly.

“Kivrin?” Colin said, and I was afraid to turn my head to see how badly injured he was. If he’d lost a limb, severed an artery, been impaled by debris… “ _Kiv_ ,” he said more strongly, with panic rising in his voice, and I forced myself up on my forearms.

I looked over at Colin, who was frightened and scratched but whole. Finally, I could breathe, although with great effort. I looked at him more closely and saw several minor cuts, and glancing at myself, saw that I had no serious injuries, either. “You are in so much trouble,” I said, but I was smiling.

“Worth it,” he said, grinning back.

“Mr. Dunworthy will likely change your mind about that,” I said, and then remembered the Mr. Dunworthy who was here with us. I rose to my feet, looking for him, and saw the destruction.

All down the street, shop windows had shattered and people were lying on the ground. Several were slowly struggling to their feet, but a handful lay dead or dying. Many were crying, and some were screaming.

Mr. Dunworthy stood twenty feet away from us, looking quite shaken. He looked at me in disbelief, glanced back at the worst of the devastation, and looked at me again. I quickly turned away to help Colin to his feet as the ambulances began to arrive.

“We should help,” Colin said, looking back on the carnage. “I can bear it.”

 _I’m not sure I can_ , I thought. _And Mr. Dunworthy is waiting, and we should get away from this Mr. Dunworthy before he asks questions we can’t answer_. All the same, I nodded silently, and we picked our way amongst the broken glass and debris.

We soon reached a dazed man whose leg was bleeding profusely. I looked about for something to use as a bandage, but Colin was already grabbing clothing out of a missing shop window. I pressed a stack of folded shirts firmly against the man’s leg, and glanced up to see Colin wrapping a woman’s arm. We were close enough now to see the badly injured in more detail than I should have liked. I saw people with bits of glass and metal sticking out of them, and, before they covered the body, a woman who’d had her face blown off. I found myself hoping Colin hadn’t seen that.

It felt like an eternity, but was probably only a matter of minutes before ambulance attendants reached us and carefully took away the man I’d been helping. Colin was speaking soothingly to the injured woman, whom I now saw was bleeding from both ears. Someone took her away, too, and there seemed to be little more we could do. “Give me your money,” I said to Colin, and we stepped inside the shop where he’d got the clothing to pay for it, but a crying shopgirl said it didn’t matter. I gave her our money, anyway, and left.

I saw Mr. Dunworthy again, from a distance. He was looking about, and I couldn’t tell whether he was looking for us or simply taking in the aftermath of the explosion. His hands were as dirty and bloodstained as our own, so he’d likely been helping victims, too.

 

It took us a lot longer than five minutes to get back to the cathedral. I still felt quite shaky and slightly unreal, and Colin wasn’t his usual chatterbox self.

When we got there, a handful of people had come to the cathedral to pray. Colin looked over to me for guidance and I said quietly, “Let’s take a few minutes to pray for the victims.” It was the least we could do, and would explain our presence. To be honest, I hoped that a few minutes’ rest would help my legs feel less wobbly. At the moment, I wasn’t at all sure I could climb the steps of the bell tower.

We settled ourselves in a pew not too near anyone else. I’m not sure how long we were there. I did pray for the people who’d been hurt or killed that day, and for those who would mourn them, but mostly my thoughts drifted. I felt drained and curiously detached from it all.

After a while, Colin started to fidget, so I whispered, “What is it?”

“What is _that_?” Colin said, pointing to a hideously strange container with flowers in it.

One of my counselors suggested art therapy to me as a way to express my feelings about Ashencote. The… _thing_ Colin was gawking at looked like something Warder might have constructed as art therapy for anger management. If so, it had clearly failed both as art and therapy.

I leaned over to Colin and said darkly, “Some things must never be spoken of.”

He grinned and said, “Time to go?” I nodded.

“The notepad!” he said, suddenly remembering.

“We are not going back for it,” I said firmly. “Someone else can do the inscriptions.”

“We could do them now,” Colin said, clearly looking about for something to write on.

“We can’t take contemp paper through the net,” I reminded him. “Mr. Dunworthy must be worried sick by now. We’re going.”

Getting up the steps wasn’t nearly so difficult as I’d imagined. It seemed the closer we got to the drop, the more energy I had. About halfway up, Colin said, “Is he angry?”

“Yes.”

 _“_ Very angry?”

“Yes,” I said, “and worried. I expect you’ll be the first student in the history of Oxford to pass his first year exams before matriculating.”

“What?” Colin said.

“Matriculating is what you do—”

“I know what it is,” he interrupted. “What did you mean about passing exams?”

I stopped and looked at him. “You didn’t know? Those essays you despise so much? Most of them are drawn straight from the first-year curriculum.”

“What?” Colin said. “So even when he’s punishing me, he’s helping me become an historian?”

I smiled sweetly at him. “I expect you’ll be getting _heaps_ of help in the very near future.”

Colin scowled, but a moment later said thoughtfully, “Do you think that’s how he became such a good historian?”

I snorted, and a few moments later we were both giggling helplessly. When I could finally catch my breath, I said, “I dare you to ask him,” which only set us off again. I knew our silliness was a nervous reaction to the experience we’d just had, but I didn’t care: it felt good to be able to laugh about something after such a stressful afternoon.

We’d made it up to the drop before he asked, “Do you think we saved his life today?”

“The man with the cut leg? Perhaps.” I could see the shimmer beginning. _Home_ _soon_.

“No, _Dunworthy_ ,” he said impatiently. “I don’t think he knew the correct time any more than you did. If we saved his life by drawing him away, then Mr. Dunworthy won’t be so angry, now will he?”

“Feeling a little less ‘worth it’?” I asked, as the net opened.

 

I’m not sure what I was expecting to find upon our return to Oxford. Dunworthy pacing nervously, perhaps, while Warder glared and Finch ran in and out doing errands.

Dunworthy wasn’t pacing, and didn’t look nervous. If anything, he looked angry and triumphant. Far from being ashen, he’d gone quite red in the face. Warder was looking at him with something curiously close to approval, while Finch regarded him with such naked admiration I concluded he would be Dunworthy’s man to the death.

“What’s happened?” I said, as the veils lifted, but he ignored me.

“What’s happened to you?” Dunworthy asked, glancing back and forth between me and Colin. “How badly are you injured?”

“Not badly at all,” I told him. “Mostly scrapes and bruises. There was slippage on the drop. We were there for the explosion and stayed after to help.”

“Mr. Dunworthy—,” Colin began, then hesitated when Dunworthy looked at him.

Over the past few years, Dunworthy and Colin have reached a point where verbal communication isn’t always necessary. I’ve seen enough of Dunworthy’s quelling looks directed at Colin to know them myself. There’s the “I’ll explain it to you later” look, the “As an adult, I feel obligated to correct this behavior” look, the “That will be enough of that, Colin” look, and the “I am utterly out of patience with you” look.

This was an extremely intense version of the “I am utterly out of patience with you” look, and Colin very wisely belted up. Mr. Dunworthy continued to look at Colin without speaking for so long it made _me_ nervous, before saying, “Infirmary. Hall. Rooms. Now,” in a tightly controlled voice.

Colin said, “Yes, sir,” very meekly and quickly left the lab.

Dunworthy turned to me and said, in a much milder tone, “You should go to Infirmary as well. Thank you for bringing him home.”

“My pleasure,” I said, but he was already leaving, himself.

I headed toward the prep room to retrieve my clothes, and Warder, returning to form, said, “That costume’s ruined! I’ll never get the blood out. Why can’t historians—”

“Shut it,” I said. “Just shut it. I’ve had a beastly day.”

 

I went to my flat to wash up. The scrapes on my hands and knees stung badly, and I had bruises coming out all over, but none of the cuts looked deep. I was tempted to skip going to Infirmary, but Dunworthy would surely ask and I felt so muddled I thought I might have concussion.

Colin had already gone by the time I arrived. I got the same nurse he’d had, which saved me the bother of explaining about the bomb. After checking me over and sealing a few cuts, he sent me on my way.

I didn’t feel like cooking, so I went over to Hall for dinner. Colin wasn’t there, either. John Bartholomew sat down with me, and caught me up on his research while I ate mechanically and made interested noises in the right places. He appeared to be fully recovered from his practicum, but I found myself wondering about his dreams.

I went home and tried to do some work after I’d eaten, but gave it up as a bad job when I realized I’d read the same paragraph three times over without taking it in. Dunworthy came by while I was putting the kettle on. He looked spent.

“I haven’t a shovel,” I said.

His lips twitched. “Colin is safely in bed.”

“Voluntarily?” I asked, and his lips twitched again, but he didn’t answer.

“I came round to see how you are,” he said.

“Fine,” I said, and he raised an eyebrow at me.

“How bad was it?” he asked, and I knew he wouldn’t leave without getting a detailed answer, so I made the tea.

I’ve had three counselors since Ashencote. The second counselor I had once told me that Ashencote hadn’t changed my life as utterly as I supposed. “On old maps,” he’d said, “distant or unknown areas were sometimes populated with mythical beasts like sea serpents and dragons. You have not fallen off the map. You have not been consumed by a monster. You have merely encountered a dragon. Once you see the dragon as a previously unknown part of yourself and not a monster, it will have no power over you.”

I suppose he thought he was being clever, working in an historical reference, but I came away feeling he knew nothing about maps or dragons. In fact, despite their training, none of the counselors have done me as much good as Mr. Dunworthy. He’s been on countless drops and understands that going on assignment isn’t like watching a vid.

Time lag isn’t the only reason we space drops. Unless an assignment is very short and uneventful, it can take a few days for historians to disengage. They go about, outwardly living in the “now” while being constantly reminded of “then.” This phenomenon is covered in first-year lectures, but my tutor had made it sound like a passing annoyance. No one had warned me that a bad drop could devour you.

I’ve sat with Mr. Dunworthy on many an evening, slowly reweaving my world around the hole Ashencote gouged in my life. He’s had bad drops of his own, and knows what it’s like to feel broken and irretrievably set apart from the world. He knows how it feels to grieve when no one around you feels the loss, when no one else understands how _responsible_ you feel for what went wrong. He’s been there, patiently supportive in his quiet way, while I’ve weathered a cataclysm no one could have prepared me for. I’ve left part of myself in Ashencote, and know that a part of it will always be with me, but I’ve reached the point where there are days when I’m not reminded of it at all. I am no longer haunted.

The dreams are still there, of course. Mr. Dunworthy says it’s likely they always will be, although they’ll become less frequent as the years go by.

When the tea was ready, I told Mr. Dunworthy about the events of the day. From the way he nodded to himself now and then, I gathered Colin had told him of his own experiences. When I finished he said, “Those are dry facts. I was looking for a bit more.”

Dunworthy has a set of looks for me, as well. He was giving me the one that says, “I am unwilling to overlook your evasion.”

I ducked my head and said, “The bodies bothered me, but it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared.” He gave me a questioning glance and I explained, “There are always bodies in my nightmares. I’ve been afraid that seeing dead people again, seeing death again, would set me off, but it wasn’t like that. My reaction felt almost… normal, as it would have been if I’d never gone to Ashencote at all.”

“That’s very encouraging,” he said. “Go on.”

“When I was waiting for Warder to send me through, I wasn’t sure I was ready. I was afraid I’d have a panic attack and be useless. I wasn’t. Even after the explosion, with all the blood and screaming and so many injured people lying about, I didn’t lose my head. I didn’t immediately think of the plague. It was… difficult. But not impossible. I could go out again. I _want_ to go out again.”

Dunworthy smiled slightly, and I realized that was what he’d been hoping to hear. I had my own questions I wanted answers for.

“We saw you there. The old you. The younger you,” I amended as he smiled again. “Did you remember us? Is that why you agreed to tutor me? Is that why you really took Colin, that first Christmas?”

“No,” he said. “I remember seeing a woman and a boy that day, but didn’t recall your faces clearly. Once you’ve reached my age, it can be difficult to know whether a face is familiar because you’ve actually met that person, or whether they merely remind you of someone you knew long ago.”

“But you thought we were a retrieval team,” I said.

“I wasn’t sure,” he answered. “It’s true I didn’t know the correct time, so I’m grateful for your intervention.” He hesitated, then said, “I thought about that day for a long time afterwards. I thought perhaps that you were from my future, and Colin had been named for me. I thought he might be my son.”

“Which isn’t so far from the truth,” I said. “What happened in the lab just before we came through? You all looked so odd.”

Dunworthy’s cheeks colored. I’d never seen him blush before. “Lady Schrapnell and I… had words,” he admitted.

“Oh?” I said, giving him a teasing look. “And could those words possibly have been about a young man who’s been telling me for the past six months that he’s almost fifteen?”

“Yes,” Dunworthy admitted. “She came by the lab to tell me she wanted an historian to research surplices, and I rather lost my temper. I told her she’d endangered the life of a defenseless minor—”

I snickered. Colin is the most self-sufficient child I’ve ever known.

“He is a minor,” Dunworthy said, “and not officially associated with the University in any capacity. Apart from being unconscionable and potentially criminal, she’s laid us open to a lawsuit. Not that Colin’s mother would actually do anything, but Lady Schrapnell needn’t know that. In any case, I began there and went on to detail the many harmful effects her interference has had on the daily operations of Time Travel. She tried to protest, but I shouted her down. It was quite a telling off,” he said, looking simultaneously embarrassed and pleased with himself.

Which would account for Warder’s and Finch’s reactions. I said, “Was she very cross? Is she pulling our funding?”

“No,” Dunworthy said. “She seemed to be more confused than angry, as if she’d never seen things from that point of view.”

“You’ve tamed the Schrapnell?” I said incredulously.

“ _Lady_ Schrapnell,” he corrected. “She’s not a mythological beast, despite evidence to the contrary. I doubt I’ve had any lasting effect on her at all. I rather expect she’ll turn up tomorrow, making the same demands as if nothing has happened.”

 

As usual, Mr. Dunworthy was right. The next day, I overheard two historians talking about Lady Schrapnell on my way to the Bod, and it was clear from their complaints that her latest outrage had just been perpetrated.

Colin came to see me in the afternoon. He was rather subdued, and there were ink stains on his hands, so I gathered he’d spent the morning working on essays. One of the items on the List is “Use a quill” and we have him using an old-fashioned fountain pen as an intermediate step. Judging by the state of Colin’s fingers, I’d say it will be a while yet before he graduates to a dip pen, much less a quill.

“Mr. Dunworthy says I’m to apologize,” he said.

“Perhaps you could begin by telling me how it happened,” I told him.

“Well, you know most of it already,” Colin said. “Lady Schrapnell wanted me to go, and I wanted to go.”

“You told me you’d be a fool to go without Dunworthy’s permission,” I reminded him.

He shifted uneasily. “That was certainly true,” he said ruefully. “But I wasn’t really thinking at the time. I mean, I left here and wandered about for a bit, then Lady Schrapnell collared me and gave me the form and told me to get cracking. I still didn’t think I could pull it off, but when I went round the lab and learned that Badri was ill, I reckoned I could fool Warder. So I changed into some of my school clothes, forged your signature, got some cash, and that was it.”

“ ‘Ta, Kiv’? ” I said pointedly.

Colin squirmed. “In retrospect, not one of my brighter impulses,” he admitted. “I am actually sorry for forging your name.”

“I’m not sure why you chose my name instead of Mr. Dunworthy’s, unless you were trying to test both of us,” I replied.

“Sorry?” he said.

“Colin, I think it’s rather odd that you just happened to do the one thing most likely to make Mr. Dunworthy unspeakably angry with you. And me, as well. You were bloody testing us, to see if we’d chuck you.”

“You’re _wrong_. I wasn’t thinking like that,” he said hotly, which was the sort of response I’d expect from a fourteen-year-old. He surprised me, though, by following it with an uncertain, “Was I?”

I don’t know anything about Colin’s father. I’m not sure Colin knows anything, either. I’ve no idea how his mother treated Colin when he was small, but now that he’s at Eton, Deirdre Templer appears to believe her parental responsibilities begin and end with paying his school fees. Colin spends nearly all of his school holidays in Oxford. Before Mr. Dunworthy, I think the only person who truly cared about Colin was Dr. Ahrens, and she’s dead.

My dragon is survivor guilt. Colin’s is abandonment. I suppose Mr. Dunworthy’s is Lady Schrapnell. Strange to think that of the three of us, Mr. Dunworthy has the least chance of slaying his monster, although he’s taken a pretty good crack at it.

We sat there in silence for a bit, while Colin turned things over in his head. “I dream about 1349,” he admitted, seemingly out of nowhere.

“I do, too.” I said. He knows this. I’ve tried to shield him from the worst of my bad days, but he knows about the nightmares.

“You dream we’re dying,” he said, nodding. “In my dreams, we don’t find the horse, and Mr. Dunworthy dies because I can’t get him back to the drop. Or we get the horse, then find the dead woman and she _is_ you and the horse runs off, and Mr. Dunworthy dies, and I’m all alone with the bodies.”

“Oh, Colin,” I said. “I didn’t know it was so bad for you. Why haven’t you told us?”

He looked down at his ink-stained hands and said, “I’m not used to people caring,” in a matter-of-fact way that nearly reduced me to tears.

“It’s time you got used to it,” I told him firmly.

“Yes, I can see that now,” he agreed, and grew quiet again. He truly is growing up. Then his mood shifted, and I witnessed the first hint of a puckish Colin I’d seen all day. “I don’t suppose we could pop over to the lab to find someone to travel back to yesterday and give me a note? These insights always seem to arrive too late to keep me out of trouble.”

I laughed, and we spent the next twenty minutes composing messages to amuse ourselves. My favorite was: “Colin: Don’t go; just pretend to go. Hide in the prep room with a corder. Dunworthy’s going to tell off the Schrapnell.”

After Colin left, I thought about how much he’s grown and changed since we first met. In his own way, he’s helped me, too. The first counselor I had told me that as time passed and my life changed, what happened in Ashencote would have less of a hold on me, because I would be a different person. She actually thought I should give up being an historian, to speed the process.

She was wrong, but not so wrong. I could never give up being an historian, but my life _has_ changed, and teaching and teasing Colin has been a big part of that. When I suggested the List, I realized I might be changing the course of Colin’s life. I never thought how helping him work through the List would change me, too.

So yes, I readily forgave him for forging my signature. But “Ta, Kiv”?

For that, I shall be avenged.

**Author's Note:**

> Since this story is told from Kivrin's POV, it wasn't possible to show what happened between Dunworthy and Colin after they left the lab. That scene can be found in [_A Different Perspective._](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2707658)


End file.
